It may come as a surprise to know…

but apparently…

animals are known to self-medicate.

Researchers in western Africa recently observed wild chimpanzees catching some type of flying insect––

although they’re not sure what sort––

crushing them…

and then rubbing them onto each other’s wounds.

Some monkeys in South America rub themselves with crushed millipedes…

which, it appears, contain a natural mosquito repellent.

Orangutans in Indonesia have been observed crushing the leaves of a certain native plant…

and mixing it with their own saliva to make a salve…

which they use to rub onto their arm joints.

That particular leaf has been found to contain an anti-inflammatory compound.

But it’s not just primates who do this.

Bears in North America consume a certain root––

often when they awake from hibernation––

which appears to help settle upset stomachs.

 

In some cases, however, it’s less clear as to why animals are ingesting what they do.

Siberian reindeer are known to consume a certain mushroom…

which seems to cause some form of intoxication in the reindeer…

and is known to be hallucinogenic when consumed by humans. 

But is that why the reindeer eat it?

And some types of dolphin appear to deliberately provoke pufferfish…

so that they will release their defensive toxins…

and the dolphins ingest it…

before turning onto their backs and “looking skyward under the surface of the water, as if fascinated by their own reflections”…

or the light patterns.

Some have suggested that…

in so doing…

the dolphins are really dabbling in “psychopharmacology”.

In other words, they’re doing it just to “get high”.

Now…

while dolphins share many behavioural traits in common with humans…

we need to be careful about imputing motivation…

or understanding. 

We don’t know why any of these animals are using or ingesting what they do…

or even if they know why.

We need to be wary of imputing our understanding and reasoning onto them.

 

Of course, the same can be said for people in other cultures…

and in other times.

Anthropologists and social historians frequently warn about the problem of “ethnocentric anachronism”––

that is…

assuming that all people of every time and every culture…

think…

and see…

and understand…

and behave…

just like we do––

or that they ought to.

 

As I indicated last week––

and, as Paul makes clear at the start of our reading from First Corinthians this morning––

some of his readers did not believe in the general resurrection of the dead;

although, it seems, they still believed in Christ’s resurrection.

Paul’s whole argument––

in our reading this morning–– 

only works if they accept the validity of Christ’s resurrection.

Because Paul, here, is deliberating and intentionally connecting the two.

You can’t have one…

he says…

without the other.

Of course…

what Paul understood by the word “resurrection”…

and what we might understand by it…

might be very different––

but more on that next week.

However, for Paul, this is of the core of the Christian faith. 

 

Now…

in the first century… 

belief in an afterlife was common in Hebrew religious thought…

although the Sadducees––

whom we occasionally meet in the Gospels––

did not subscribe to such a belief.

After all, the idea of an afterlife had been a fairly recent Hebrew doctrine––

one that began to develop, it seems, during the period of Israel’s Exile.

And, indeed, historically speaking… 

such a belief seems to have gone hand-in-hand with suffering.

In the face of pain and loss, deprivation, and the fickle cruelties of fate––

where good people suffered and the wicked seemed to go unpunished––

the only way to reconcile belief in a fair and just God…

was to believe in some sort of cosmic recompense;

some day in which there would be a reversal of fortunes…

and the wicked would finally get what they deserved.

We certainly see elements of that within Hebrew thought in the first century.

And…

given that… 

we could well imagine why the wealthy and well-to-do Corinthians––

who used and manipulated the poorer church members for their own benefit––

would not be enamoured with such a belief.

That would make sense.

But, ascribing such a motivation to them would simply be a guess…

or, possibly, an imposition.

 

Last week, I also suggested…

that the problem surrounding this “denial”…

may be that belief in an afterlife was not particularly common in the Roman religious world-view…

and especially among the more educated and well-to-do;

and yet, at the same time…

they understood what happened to Christ along the lines of what…

they believed…

happened to the Emperor when he died and he was transformed into a god.

As such… 

the well-to-do Corinthian Christians don’t seem to have drawn a connection… 

between what happened to Christ after he died…

and what might happen to them when they died.

But, in reality, we don’t know why they believed what they did…

or didn’t.

 

And yet…

as Paul makes clear here…

it’s the theological implications of all of this that are crucial.

Part of the problem of denying a general resurrection… 

while believing in Christ’s resurrection––

especially if it was akin to the divinisation of the Emperor––

is the dichotomy that it creates between us and Christ.

Divinisation––

for the Emperor––

was, effectively, a reward for the Emperor’s good behaviour and benevolence;

his effective use of power in securing the peace of the Empire…

and ensuring the prosperity of the well-to-do who benefitted most from it.

Divinisation––

in this case––

was predicated on his prior power and privilege…

and it further enshrined that.

If––

as Paul claims––

Christ’s fate and our fate are the same…

then the distance between him and us has effectively collapsed.

And that has all sorts of real-world––

socio-political and socio-religious––

implications.

Indeed, as we shall see next week… 

Paul does not conceive of “resurrection” as some sort of disembodied existence;

and certainly not in the way that popular Christian faith has so often understood it.

 

And yet…

Paul’s argument here…

is not, ultimately, a Christological statement.

Nor is it a statement of ‘theological anthropology’.

Paul’s whole argument here––

in our reading this morning–– 

is ultimately a statement about the nature of God.

However we might understand “resurrection”…

Paul is staking a claim about the fundamentally life-giving nature of God…

which was demonstrated in Christ…

and which we can experience now…

and will experience in the future.

However we might understand “resurrection”…

what is central… 

Paul claims… 

is God’s continuity amid the discontinuity of our mortal existence.

The compassion and commitment of the life-giving God––

to each and every one of us…

and to justice––

is not swallowed up by death.

Death does not negate God’s fundamentally life-giving nature;

and death does not change––

and cannot change–– 

God’s love for us.

That, in the end, is the true hope that lies in the resurrection.